Even before Amazon made the announcement, brokers in Long Island City reportedly said that they had seen a flurry of inquiries from customers looking to buy real estate in the area. Reports surfaced last week that Amazon could develop its new headquarters in the neighborhood.

While the news was officially announced on Tuesday morning, it didn't come as a surprise to many people after reports surfaced last week that Amazon would likely be picking these two locations.

In fact, people were so convinced that this would happen that they began snapping up real estate in this area before the official announcement was even made.

Long Island City real estate brokers told The Wall Street Journal that they had witnessed a flurry of inquiries over the past week. Some of these people were even buying units, sight-unseen, via text message, The Journal wrote on Tuesday morning.

"This is the first time in my 20-year career that I have seen the market go from a buyer's market to a seller's market overnight, based on a rumor," Patrick W. Smith, a Stribling agent in Long Island City, told The Journal.

According to The Journal, searches on the real-estate listing site StreetEasy surged 295% for the neighborhood last week versus the week before. The biggest spike occurred in the first few days after news broke that Amazon could be opening an office in Long Island City. Search volume jumped more than 400% at that time, according to StreetEasy.

"Buyers are hoping it will become the next Silicon Valley and want to be in on that," Kayla Lee, a broker at Modern Spaces, told The Journal.

But while many are hoping to capitalize on an upcoming real-estate boom, some locals are worried about the potential downsides that this will have on rental prices, gentrification, and traffic.

These people have most likely taken note of the impact many say Amazon's main headquarters has had on Seattle, where locals complain of skyrocketing rents, prolonged construction, gentrification, and gridlock traffic.

Business Insider reported earlier this year that Seattle's median rent increased by nearly three times the national median from 2005 to 2015.